


Secure Housing

by birlcholtz (justwhatialwayswanted)



Series: Windup Universe [2]
Category: Sharp Zero (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, another way the identity reveal could have happened, basically AU of my own AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 05:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20755130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/birlcholtz
Summary: way back when i thought i had a set outline that i would follow the whole way through on windup, i wrote these two chapters without really knowing if i could fit them in. i held on to them (i can't remember as of rn if i ever posted them on tumblr?) but now that the real windup is done, i figured i would share them! :)





	1. Ace

**Author's Note:**

> way back when i thought i had a set outline that i would follow the whole way through on windup, i wrote these two chapters without really knowing if i could fit them in. i held on to them (i can't remember as of rn if i ever posted them on tumblr?) but now that the real windup is done, i figured i would share them! :)

Ace knows something is wrong when he walks in and all of Alex’s stuff is packed up.

He’d never completely unpacked— there wasn’t anywhere for him to put his stuff, anyway— but over time, more and more stuff had found its place in the corner: duffel bag lying flat on the floor, clothes folded neatly on top, shoes lined up next to it and toiletries stacked on the other side. (Ace would be lying if he said the perpetual neatness of it wasn’t more than a little attractive.)

But now, there’s just the duffel bag, full and zipped up, although he can see the creases from where Alex had folded it.

And there’s Alex, sitting next to the duffel bag, with a jacket on and a pair of shoes next to him, looking like he’s been sitting there and waiting for a while.

“Hello,” Ace says, because he isn’t quite sure what to say.

“Hi.” 

_ Well, that’s a good start.  _

“So... I literally have no idea how I’m going to explain all of this to you, but you should really come to this safe house in the middle of nowhere with me, Madina, and Danny. Like right now.”

Uh?

“I’m gonna need you to explain that.”

Alex lets out a sigh so big that Ace can see his back move under his jacket. The awful athleisure jacket, the one that Ace would be lying about if he said it hadn’t grown on him. “There are... some people after me.” 

Which is a very, very bad sign. Ace has been desperately ignoring every similarity between Alex and Redshift that he can find. But they’re getting harder and harder to ignore.

“So I’m leaving temporarily, and they might try to use you to get to me, so you should come with me. It’ll be safer.”

Ace does some fast-ass mental math just then. If Alex is leaving, that means the threat level against him— against him, who is probably Redshift (because really, who else is getting hunted down in this city, and now that Alex has told him that, there’s no good way for Ace’s brain to refuse to acknowledge it)— is increasing, which means Caesar is making progress, which means that he will be looking for Crank, and Crank will have to respond. Which means... he can’t leave to go to Alex’s fucking  _ bunker _ . 

But he can’t say that. Because ‘probably Redshift’ is not good enough. Redshift knows who Crank is. Alex doesn’t.

So he has to convince Alex to let him stay some other way.

“Mm, I don’t think so. It’s bad enough you’re taking away my bassist, but why would they try to use me? I just gave you a place to crash. Why would they think I know where you went now? As far as they’re concerned, I might just be grateful to have my place back to myself. Have fun, but I’m staying here.”

“That’s like, the worst idea ever.”  _ Yup. Not much I can do about it, though.  _

There’s silence for a moment, and then Alex says, “But there’s nothing I can do to stop you, is there?”

“Nope.”

“Fine. But if you get kidnapped, I’m not saving you.”

“First of all, I won’t,” which is more hopeful than it is true, “and second of all, how are you going to do that from your bunker in the middle of nowhere?”

“Whatever. You do that. But watch out for yourself. Lock your windows.”

That’s... unexpected. “My windows.”

“You leave your balcony unlocked.”

Of course. Redshift always comes in through the balcony. Crank does it too, sometimes, but not too often, just in case someone sees it happen too many times. Ace has gotten in the habit of leaving it unlocked, because he never knows who’s going to try to get in. Apparently, Alex has noticed too— but if he’s Redshift, he probably knew all along.

The easiest thing to do is nod. Ace really needs to get out of this conversation before Alex starts asking questions like ‘how do you know you’ll be okay’. So he sits down (near Alex, but not too near) and turns the conversation around. “Are you gonna be okay in the middle of nowhere?”

Which, okay, sounds more concerned than the nonchalant-ness he was going for. 

There’s another sigh. “To be honest? I don’t know. But it’ll probably be better than here, and hopefully I’ll be back soon. But what about you?”

_ God fucking damn it. _

Alex continues. “Look, it’s my fault you’re in danger. I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

And fuck, now Ace feels  _ guilty _ for not abandoning his job to go fuck off with a merry band of wanted people to a fucking cabin in the woods, or whatever, when staying here and following through is the only way to convince Eli and the Vindicators as a group that he really is with them. 

So maybe that’s why he says, “I know why you’re in danger. I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

If his goal was ending the conversation, that is definitely not doing the trick. 

Alex’s head snaps up and he says, “Why do you think I’m in danger?” And it comes out clipped, like he’s already thinking about his next move. 

Ace is very familiar with that tone. Just not when he’s dressed like a civilian.

“I can’t tell you that.”  _ I want to.  _ “But it’ll be safer if you leave me here.”

“Okay, no. If I’m leaving and I don’t know when I’m coming back, and you’re staying and I don’t know if you’re, like,  _ living, _ this is not the time for secrets.”

_ How far is he willing to take that? _

“Okay. Then tell me why you’re in danger.”

Alex looks Ace straight in the eye and says, “Because I’m Redshift.”

“I know.”  _ That’s what I was afraid of. _

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are.” Ace sighs. He’s pretty sure he’s known, deep down, for a long time that Redshift and Alex were the same person. But admitting it would make... pretty much everything different. So he hasn’t. “It’s just, I’ve been trying to keep you out of the search for Redshift for  _ weeks. _ I only started thinking it was you, I don’t know, maybe a couple of days ago?”

“The search for Redshift?” If Ace thought Alex was in fight mode before, it’s nothing compared to now. He can see Alex tensing. “What have you been doing?”

“Swear to me that as soon as we finish this conversation, we both go our separate ways and pretend we never talked about this.”

Alex nods sharply.

“Okay. I... I work for Caesar. He’s the one hunting you. You know me already.”

And because Ace has no more fucks left to give— Alex just trusted him with his biggest secret, and maybe it’s stupid, but Ace does believe that Alex will just leave and pretend he never knew anything— he pulls up a flame. A small one, not big enough to draw attention, as long as nobody’s looking.

Alex is looking.

Ace can see him processing that. The fire, which means Ace is Crank, which means that Alex has been sharing an apartment with the same guy he regularly tries to beat the shit out of. Ace knows that mental journey because he literally just went through it. 

And Alex is frankly going to take a long ass time, and Ace doesn’t have time, and neither does Alex, and he should know that, and honestly if Ace was Alex he would have just kidnapped himself and gone to the bunker because that would be way simpler and then they wouldn’t be in this situation, and Ace wouldn’t have to worry because there would be nothing he could’ve done, and he could just... enjoy not having to get involved.

But that would mean leaving Kate behind to deal with all of this on her own, and disappearing randomly is not how Ace wants his story to go. If he’s going to disappear, honestly, it needs a lot more panache than this— a duffel bag, an apartment, and then a safe house.

He can’t leave.

“Just go. I won’t follow you. I promise.”

“And I won’t follow you.” Alex puts his shoes on, grabs his bag, stands up. He walks past Ace, toward the door, but then he stops and turns back. “When this is all over, we’re watching trashy reality TV at my place.”

“Only if you come without the mask.”

“Same to you.”

Ace puts on a smile he’s not feeling. They both know that the chances of that happening are really small. Without Redshift to keep track of, the Vindicators are free to play hardball with Caesar, and they will. And he’ll do the exact same thing back to them. He always has. “It’s a date.”

Alex sighs, so quietly Ace isn’t even really sure he heard anything. “Yup.”

“Stay safe.”

“Me? I’m literally going to be so safe that I’m pretty sure my powers will just spontaneously vanish because they know they’re not needed anymore.  _ You _ stay safe.”

“I’m trying.”

“You better.” For a second, Ace thinks that’s really how the conversation is going to end, not with a bang but a sort of limp ‘plop’, and then Alex says, “Because I like you more than I originally planned.” 

Ace isn’t sure what Alex means by that, and he’s sure as hell not going to ask, because either Alex means that purely platonically, which means Ace will be disappointed, or Alex means that... some  _ other _ way, which means Ace will still be disappointed because after all, the whole reason they’re having this conversation is because Alex is about to fuck off to the middle of nowhere with Danny and Madina.

So he nods, and says, “Yeah.” And he hopes that’s enough for Alex to know what he means.

And from the look in Alex’s eyes, yes, he gets it, and  _ that _ is why Ace doesn’t want him to go, but he is, so whatever. 

Ace’s policy with stuff like this is ‘fuck it, move on.’ Usually, ‘stuff like this’ doesn’t involve supering, or criminal history, or warfare, but he’ll make it work. He always does.

Alex shifts his duffel bag to his other shoulder. “Okay. And when I get back, we’ll figure out what to do about... all of this.”

“I thought we were going to pretend we never had this conversation and just keep living our lives.”

He smiles like he didn’t mean to do it. “I think you know as well as I do that’s not going to happen.”

“Yeah. I do.” 

For better or for worse, when Alex gets back from his safe housing, things are going to change. Ace doesn’t think there’ll be a lot more apartment-sharing in their future. When this fight ends and the Vindicators don’t need him anymore, he’s not going to be Crank much longer. The only question is what he will be.


	2. Alex

There are some things spinning through Alex’s brain as he leaves the apartment, but probably not as many as Ace would expect. For one, Alex already knew that Ace was Crank, so the only surprise was that Ace admitted it to him so openly. For another, he’d... kind of expected Ace to say no.

Look, Alex is a pretty practical person, and he never let himself actually believe that Ace’s response would be ‘of course I’ll come, and for that matter I’m giving up on the Vindicators, also known as my only hope for getting past being a criminal, which means I’m giving up being Crank, so neither of us will ever have to worry about our secret identities causing problems between us again’. No matter how much he wanted it to be that.

He still feels disappointment, the gray kind when you knew something was going to happen, but knowing that doesn’t make experiencing it better.

The rendezvous spot with the team tasked with getting him secretly to the secure housing is in Alex’s apartment. He hasn’t gone in for a long time, as he’s gradually moved more and more stuff next door, but they needed a good spot for the team to wait for him, and it had to be close by, because Eli wants as little risk as possible in getting Alex from one stage of the plan to the next.

So he doesn’t really need to wait. But once he closes Ace’s door behind him, he still gives himself a moment to wipe any trace of that conversation from his face.

The apartment is quiet when he opens the door, but that makes sense— they’re trying to avoid broadcasting their location. Whoever is here will probably stay quiet until they know it’s Alex.

When he closes the door behind him, something closes around his neck.

Fuck.

It’s an arm, Alex can tell. Someone’s putting him in a headlock. Since he can’t breathe, he can’t call out, but he can’t just stay here and let himself be weakened, either, and he’s carrying a bunch of stuff which means his arms aren’t free— he could drop the stuff, but he doesn’t want to just leave it where anyone could get at it, especially not if they were waiting for him.

The safest thing to do, since he has no idea who he’s up against, is get out of there, and because he’s trapped, he needs to shift. Speed won’t get him anywhere with something around his neck. It’s more likely to kill him. He needs to just shift and hope that his navigation will pull through and take him... well, anywhere else.

It’s risky, but if there’s any time to do something risky...

He doesn’t have much time. He’s already wasted enough considering pros and cons— he should have just shifted out the second he was jumped.

With that in mind, Alex says a more extensive ‘fuck it’ to precision and  _ shifts. _ It feels like a hard yank— maybe because he is fucking determined for it to  _ work, damn it. _

But the pressure is still there, and he feels heat, and then it’s suddenly gone, and something thuds to the ground behind him.

Alex opens his eyes. He hadn’t even realized they were closed.

When he does, the first thing he sees is that same familiar couch, and the second thing he sees is Ace, standing far enough to the side that Alex didn’t notice him at first.

“We need to go,” Ace says, and it’s so unlike him, quick and firm.

“What just happened?”

“Look behind you.”

He does.

There’s a blue person, unconscious, their arms scorched dark.

Alex looks back at Ace. “Did you—”

“We need to  _ go,” _ Ace insists, and he’s right, so Alex nods, and he pushes down the confusion and the disappointment and the tangled mess in his mind and focuses on the problem at hand, which is that instead of a team from Mission Control in his apartment, there was a blue person trying to incapacitate him.

“Something went wrong with my rendezvous,” he says.

“No shit.”

“The safest thing to do is go straight to Mission Control. That’s a lot more secure than this building. Someone will probably be there, and even if it’s completely deserted, I know all the codes and stuff. We can just hide out in there until we figure out what to do next.” Alex shifts his duffel bag to a more comfortable position. “And don’t think you’re getting out of coming along this time.”

Ace doesn’t argue with that, which is good, because Alex has zero time for them. Danny and Madina have different rendezvous locations. Hopefully they’ve made it safely and they’re going to the secure location. The rest of the Vindicators should still be in the city, but Alex doesn’t want to try to contact them from here, unless they need to so they can get out of the building.

Speaking of which...

“How are we going to get out of here?” he says out loud.

“We’re going to take the elevator.” Alex’s surprise must show on his face, because Ace says, “They’re just regular people with tool belts. Stopping a moving elevator is hard without at least super strength or immunity. I mean, they could just cut the cables and hope we die on impact, but that leaves a lot to chance. And if there are civilians in the elevator, it’ll be harder for them to do anything.”

“I don’t think they care about hurting regular people.”

“But they want to get in and out of here without anyone noticing. Bodies turning up in the elevator cause problems.” Ace grabs his shoes and his wallet. “Let’s go.”

It’s a short walk down the hall to the elevator, and it’s a short wait before the elevator arrives on their floor, but they both feel interminable. Alex is about ready to jump out of his skin. He’s had plenty of confrontations before, but never as Alex, and he doesn’t like the feeling of being hunted.

“Relax,” Ace mutters.

“As if you’re relaxed.”

“I’m not, but I sure look like I am.”

The elevator doors open— it’s empty, and Alex is grateful. Even if it would be convenient to have a random person in there with them, there’s no guarantee that the random person wouldn’t suddenly whip out a taser.

The lobby, too, is empty, and that almost never happens. Alex has a sneaking suspicion that the blue people have gotten everyone out one way or another. But they missed Ace.

Or maybe they skipped him.

When they get outside to the busy sidewalk, Alex breathes a sigh of relief, but then he stops, because it’s busy enough that they might lose each other, which would be bad for a whole bunch of reasons.

“Hey,” he says, and when Ace looks at him questioningly, he grabs his hand. It’s still really warm from the flames, but he doesn’t let go. “We need to stick together.”

Ace nods as they start walking again. “You know the way?”

“Yeah. Let’s avoid side streets. If it wasn’t so easy to fake an accident, I’d have gotten my motorcycle.”

“I definitely do not want to die in a motorcycle accident.”

“Noted.”

It takes all of Alex’s willpower to look like he’s walking at a leisurely pace, and holding Ace’s hand doesn’t help, because he’s suddenly hyperaware of everything his hand is doing. And trying to micromanage muscle movements is honestly not his forte, and frankly it’s incredibly lame that he’s reacting this much to holding someone’s hand. He’d expect this from himself in middle school, but now?

Like he said. Lame.

They turn corner after corner and struggle through sidewalks packed full of pedestrians, but eventually, they make it to the building, and then inside, and then to the main floor, where interns are carrying coffees and sheafs of paper and people are talking on the phone and doing stuff with computers and it all looks so.... normal.

“This is a different section from last time,” Ace says.

“Yeah, last time we had to go the long way because you weren’t supposed to see any of the actual work stuff happening. I’ve decided to forget about that. Which probably means that I’m going to get yelled at, so be prepared, but it’s also kind of a daily occurrence.”

“Fun.”

“Yeah.”

He needs to get his ID out to get into the most central part of Mission Control, and Ace says, “You are definitely getting in trouble for that.”

“Eli threatens to fire me all the time. I may as well go all out.”

“Go all out on what?” Eli’s voice says as the door finishes opening.

“Eli, we have a big fucking problem,” Alex says instead.

The door hisses closed behind them as Eli says, “Yes, we do, because there is a person in Mission Control who definitely should not be in Mission Control, and I hope you have a good reason but I think I might be deluding myself. Enlighten me.”

Alex speeds through it as fast as he can. Halfway through, Bridget starts typing furiously, and Kyna picks up her phone and calls someone, talking quietly so she can still hear.

When he’s done, it takes three seconds for Eli to process, and then he says, “Consider me enlightened. Both of you, stay here. We need to assemble teams to check on the teams who are getting Madina and Danny out of here, as well as what happened to the one that was supposed to take you, which makes me deeply frustrated, but I will handle that, and you will plant your butts in that corner—” he points— “and wait there until we figure out what to do with you. And I’m getting Galaxy in here to talk to both of you. Everyone else, you know what to do, because I have been drilling it into you for the past week and a half, so if you  _ don’t _ know what to do by now, I’m demoting you to intern.”

Eli strides out as the room erupts into a cacophony of people talking, typing, and computerized voices and security feeds playing. Alex distinctly hears the phrase ‘body removal’ coming from Chazz’s direction.

“That was pleasant,” Ace says.

“Yeah. He must have been having a good day.”

“I don’t see you planting your butts in that corner,” Maria calls over to them.


End file.
